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The American Medical Student Association (AMSA), founded in 1950 and based in Washington, D.C., is the oldest and largest independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States. AMSA is a student-governed, national organization that represents the concerns of physicians-in-training. They have a membership of 65,000 medical students, premedical students, interns, medical residents and practicing physicians from across the country.

AMSA's action committees and interest groups help expose medical students to information on subjects not generally covered in traditional curricula, and is the only major national medical organization in the US that accepts no sponsorship or funding from any pharmaceutical company.

Strategic priorities

In 2003, AMSA leaders selected four strategic priorities:

• Fighting for Universal Health Care and advocacy for health care reform and a single-payer universal health care system
• Eliminating Health Disparities through education about domestic and global health disparities
• Advocating for Diversity in Medicine and improvement of recruitment and retention into medicine of under-reperesented minorities, while increasing the diversity of its own leadership
• Transforming the Culture of Medical Education to create a humane and cooperative learning environment, one that will develop physicians worthy of the public trust, through work hour reform, revitalization of professionalism in the medical field, and through AMSA's PharmFree campaign

Action Committees

• Medical Education Action Committee (MedEd)
• Community and Public Health Action Committee (CPH)
• Health Policy Action Committee (HPAC)
• Humanistic Medicine Action Committee (HuMed)
• Global Health Action Committee (GHAC)
• Advocacy Action Committee (Advocacy)
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Health

History

The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) was founded in 1950, as the Student American Medical Association (SAMA), under the auspices of the American Medical Association (AMA). The main purpose of the organization was to provide medical students a chance to participate in organized medicine.

The late 1960s saw dramatic changes in the organization's objectives and philosophy. In 1967, AMSA established its independence from the AMA, became student-governed, and began to raise its own voice on a variety of socio-medical issues, including civil rights, universal health care and Vietnam.[1]

In a collaboration with medical educators that began in 1968, AMSA proposed numerous reforms and model curricula, to transform medical education in order to make the profession more responsive to community needs. AMSA was also instrumental in the introduction of the original Family Practice Act of 1970, and supported legislation establishing the National Health Service Corps.

AMSA has led a campaign to reform medical resident work hours, long a controversial issue in the field. AMSA authored the Patient and Physician Safety and Protection Act of 2005, introduced by Senator Jon Corzine (S. 1297) and Representative John Conyers (H.R.1228).

In addition to sponsoring events highlighting prospects for universal health care, medical technology and HIV/AIDS, AMSA also has organized the PharmFree Campaign to educate and train its members to interact professionally and ethically with the pharmaceutical industry.

In September, 2005, AMSA led the National Conference on the Financing of Undergraduate Medical Education, an event that brought together legislators, medical organizations, medical students and others to address skyrocketing medical debt.

A modest rebellion

A growing contingent of medical students, who believe the medical profession needs more detachment from big pharmaceutical firms, has resulted in a 'modest rebellion' known as the PharmFree project, established by the AMSA in 2002.[2] Spending on marketing to physicians, which includes gifts to med students, rose from $12.1 billion in 1999 to $22 billion in 2003. Based on the premise that taking gifts from pharmaceutical companies creates a conflict of interest for doctors, the AMSA now urges both students and practicing physicians to 'just say no' to all personal gifts from drugmakers.

Other PharmFree activism has included a march on Pfizer offices in New York, where med students assembled at the firm's front doors and dumped thousands of pens marked with the company's logo on the doorstep. AMSA also started the Counterdetailing Campaign in 2005 to encourage physicians-in-training to educate practicing physicians about alternative sources of information regarding pharmaceuticals. Since "detailing" is the concept of drug representatives selling biased information to physicians, AMSA came up with the concept of "counterdetailing" as the opposite concept, to bring physicians evidence-based sources of information. Thousands of medical students have since participated in the Counterdetailing Campaign.

Campaign for Children's Health Care

AMSA is a partner in the Campaign for Children's Health Care, a multi-year campaign to raise awareness about the problem of uninsured children in America.

References

External links

• AMSA.org - American Medical Student Association homepage
• AMSA.org - 'Marketing versus Research and Development'
• BMJJournals.com - 'The ethics of pharmaceutical industry relationships with medical students', Wendy A. Rogers, Peter R. Mansfield, Annette J. Braunack-Mayer and Jon N. Jureidini, British Medical Journal (2004)
• CSMonitor.com - 'A pill they won't swallow', G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Christian Science Monitor (December 29, 2005)
• StudentBMJ.com - 'First Pharmfree Day launched', Raghav Chawla, Student British Medical Journal